Chapter 182: Chapter 182

Lei Jun looked at his lot and couldn’t help but feel speechless.

*Was Red Mountain Manor lucky or cursed? Hard to say.*

Last time, when he had left Red Mountain Manor to return to the mountain, he got into trouble on the way.

This time, was it really going to happen all over again?

Besides, it seemed as if the situation was even worse than last time.

Last time, it was two moderately good lots, paired with one perfectly neutral lot and one moderately unlucky lot.

This time, there was just a single moderately good lot, and then a "the worst lot" popped up.

A sign of utter disaster, certain death and no hope of survival.

This really was... Lei Jun could only shake his head repeatedly.

Of course, the silver lining was, he didn’t have to wrestle with happy problems this time; as long as he didn’t rush headfirst, he could turn misfortune into luck.

Speaking of dodging calamity, this round of lots seemed to have some secrets to it... Lei Jun’s gaze flickered.

Good and bad intertwined, Heaven and men, all bring disaster.

The meaning should be, this deadly fate this time was caused by both natural calamity and human harm.

*But was it that both kinds of disasters combined to create the risk of the moderately unlucky lot and the worst lot?*

*Or did the moderately unlucky lot and the worst lot stem from different causes?*

Lei Jun sat atop his disciple-in-training’s broad back, deep in thought.

This Gungun really did have spiritual nature; as if sensing Lei Jun’s state of mind, it quietly stayed where it was, not making its usual playful fuss.

After a moment, Lei Jun patted its forehead.

The giant panda then perked up and set off, galloping away on all fours.

Under Lei Jun’s direction, it naturally headed toward Remaining Sunlight Gorge, the direction the moderately good lot pointed to.

Letting the panda run, Lei Jun focused his attention on the surrounding area.

There ought to be a Fifth Grade Opportunity here.

Just didn’t know what it was.

The panda raced through the mountains, and after half a day, they gradually approached a massive gorge.

The scenery, bathed in the glow of sunset, was impossibly beautiful.

Lei Jun kept his senses primed for any sign of opportunity, while savoring the splendid view of nature, marveling at Heaven and Earth’s wonders.

Lei Jun’s expression suddenly changed.

He clearly sensed that some remnant demon aura lingered in the gorge!

As a cultivator in Spiritual Energy, Lei Jun rarely came into contact with demon aura, but he was extremely sensitive to it.

Not just him—even the giant panda under him suddenly grew agitated.

At once, Lei Jun became hyper-alert; while soothing Gungun, he paid extra attention to their surroundings.

Good thing he’d made it a habit to always keep his Wind-Thunder Talisman’s "Night Wind" buff on himself.

Now, with Lei Jun even more watchful, his mana was churning, body concealed tighter, "Night Wind" spreading wider, letting him mask the giant bulk of Gungun beside him.

As far as the moderately good lot said, this path should hold no risk and no after-effects. It wasn’t likely, right...? *Lei Jun was privately curious.*

But he still kept maximum vigilance, taking Gungun and carefully making their way through the gorge.

Lucky the lot didn’t mention any strict time limit this round.

Lei Jun decided first to guarantee safety, then consider whether to continue seeking out opportunity.

*He wasn’t being overly cautious. It was just that the demon aura felt so thick and nasty.*

Yet, after making his way through the gorge for a while, Lei Jun gradually relaxed.

The demon aura wasn’t growing any stronger, nor was it showing any signs of sudden surges or chaos.

Quite the contrary—the longer they stayed, the demon aura seemed to slowly fade away.

He couldn’t be a hundred percent certain, but from all the current clues, Remaining Sunlight Gorge seemed like a place where a Great Demon had dwelled before.

But now, it was gone.

Just, it wasn’t clear whether the demon might come back to the gorge later.

There was a chance—but not a guarantee.

Lei Jun recalled the moderately unlucky lot and the worst lot.

Maybe the Cangling River valley and Tiansong Mountain were the Great Demon’s new lair for now.

*Speculating as he searched, Lei Jun kept himself on high alert, scouring the area with care.*

Under the shadow of the demon aura, Lei Jun’s senses were badly disrupted.

But as the demon aura started to thin out a bit, Lei Jun found his perceptions of other things slowly growing sharper.

After a short while, Lei Jun’s heart stirred slightly.

He picked up a faint hint of something magical, a thread of spiritual nature.

Against the background of the demon aura, it stood out even more.

Still, this spiritual nature was unusual—strange even.

Lei Jun raised his hand and formed a spell gesture.

Lightning sparked from his fingertips, transforming into Yin Metal Thunder from the Yin Five Thunder Righteous Dharma.

Streaking with magnetism, the lightning danced through the air and gathered into a single bolt, as if tugged by something invisible, wending its way through the demon aura.

Lei Jun’s spirits soared; he slapped Gungun at his side, and together, man and panda gave chase.

As they continued, Lei Jun suddenly felt a chill sweep over him.

Up ahead, the demon aura thickened again.

Rounding a bend, the ground was littered with bizarre, enormous feathers.

Each feather was both black and white, half and half, the boundary crisp and clear, yet joined in a single shaft.

The feathers were gigantic—a single plume looked like a banana leaf fan.

"Are those the Great Demon’s feathers?" Lei Jun felt the demon aura heavy in the air around the plumes.

No doubt, most of the demon aura in Remaining Sunlight Gorge was coming from these.

But Lei Jun had his eye on something else.

There, on the ground off to the side, lay a chunk of twisted, deformed metal.

Despite being gnarled and bent, the chunk was so massive it was almost like half a millstone.

The odd spiritual nature, and the cold waves, all radiated from the metal itself.

Lei Jun reached out and pressed his hand to the metal, feeling its chill.

[Southern Extreme Cold Iron]

He had a sudden flash of insight; the name sprang to mind.

Lei Jun’s face broke into a satisfied smile.

This chunk of metal was clearly an exotic treasure.

The Fifth Grade Opportunity the moderately good lot spoke of, it had to be this.

For Lei Jun, the value wasn’t in "cold iron," but in the "Southern Extreme."

Besides emitting a freezing chill, the strange spiritual nature was exactly the Primordial Magnet Force Lei Jun had been studying lately.

"Interesting. Very interesting." Lei Jun was instantly engaged.

Just then, a massive head poked over beside him.

This gluttonous iron-eating beast was obviously interested too.

But Lei Jun shoved its big head away.

He tucked the Southern Extreme Cold Iron into his Miniature Bag.

He still couldn’t be totally sure whether that Great Demon would come back to Remaining Sunlight Gorge.

So Lei Jun decided to stash the treasure for now and wait till he returned to Dragon Tiger Mountain to study it more closely.

He hopped back onto the broad shoulder of Gungun.

The big guy didn’t dodge, but turned its head aside, acting as if it was sulking and giving Lei Jun the cold shoulder.

Lei Jun petted its head with a chuckle, "Relax, you’ll get your share later."

Gungun was the type to never believe until it saw the rabbit; hearing this, it wasn’t all that cheered up.

But it shook its head and strode off, following Lei Jun’s command and leaving Remaining Sunlight Gorge behind.

The demon aura here made Gungun, who also thrived on Spiritual Energy, feel especially uncomfortable.

Good thing that moderately good lot came through.

Just as the lot predicted, nothing dangerous happened along the way.

All the way until man and bear left Remaining Sunlight Gorge safely—no sign of the Great Demon coming back.

Lei Jun gave Gungun another pat on the head, and together they set out on their cheerful journey home.

But as they went, both man and bear’s ears suddenly twitched at the same time.

The panda didn’t stop walking.

Lei Jun, though, turned his head to look off into the distance.

He sensed that someone over there was deep in a duel of magic, creating quite a ruckus.

*If I’m not mistaken, that’s in the direction of the Cangling River valley...* Lei Jun raised an eyebrow.

Speaking of the Cangling River valley, last time the lot from Red Mountain Manor to the mountain mentioned that place too. Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹~𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮~𝚗𝚎𝚝

But Lei Jun had chosen Guyuan Peak instead, another moderately good lot, giving up on Cangling River.

Who would have thought the Jiangzhou Lin Clan had people go there and managed to obtain the Divine Eye Mirror Stone?

Of course, by a strange twist of fate, the Divine Eye Mirror Stone ended up in Master Lei’s hands in the end.

This time, with Cangling River falling under a moderately unlucky lot, Lei Jun certainly wasn’t considering it.

But from the looks of it, did someone else step on the landmine?

*Lei Jun was a bit curious, but he didn’t go closer.*

Taking advantage of the night, he guided the panda up a neighboring tall mountain, then used the Divine Eye Mirror Stone he’d gotten before to observe from afar.

The sides in the fight were on the move.

Looked like one side was fighting while retreating, the other relentlessly pursuing.

As their movement brought them nearer, Lei Jun squinted and gradually saw the identities of both sides.

The ones fighting and fleeing were just a single person alone.

What surprised Lei Jun most was that the person turned out to be Zhang Jingzhen herself.

He hadn’t heard Zhang Jingzhen was leaving Red Mountain Manor when he left—so why had she shown up here...? *Lei Jun wondered.*

He examined Zhang Jingzhen’s pursuers.

Cultivators of the Confucian Sect, sword aura everywhere.

Confucian scholars chanting poetry, invoking mystical phenomena.

Confucian Divine Archers, bows drawn and ready.

Judging by their attire, they resembled the Jiangzhou Lin Clan disciples like Lin Liao he’d seen before.

Great, the same old enemies... *Lei Jun frowned internally.*

Zhang Jingzhen was already a Sixth Heavenly Layer cultivator of the Talisman Sect, but she wasn’t just at a disadvantage—she was wounded too.

Not only was she outnumbered and ambushed, but the Lin Clan’s siege this time was stacked—the lineup was loaded.

Not just one Lin Clan Elder at the Sixth Heavenly Realm; a whole crowd of Lin Clan disciples joined in the attack.

If anyone but Zhang Jingzhen had been here—even with Sixth Heavenly Realm cultivation—they’d probably never break out alive.

The battle raged, forests were cut down in swathes, even several peaks collapsed.

For those below the Upper Three Heavens, the scale here was astonishing.

Luckily it was deep in the mountains for now, so it didn’t affect anyone else just yet.

Even though Zhang Jingzhen fought with composure, charging left and right to outmaneuver her enemies, she still couldn’t shake her pursuers.

Behind her, the lead Lin Clan Elder wore a cold expression, "Quite the big catch, don’t let her get away."

A young man beside him lamented, "Too bad it’s not that Lei Jun. Heard he left Dragon Tiger Mountain, but we didn’t manage to trap him!"

The Lin Clan Elder kept his face blank, "We’ll get our chance later."

One Lin Clan disciple said, "Uncle, weren’t we supposed to target Taoist Celestial Masters unrelated to Xinzhou’s Li Family first? Zhang Jingzhen may not be a Li by name, but she’s not some backwater nobody..."

The old man replied coolly, "Country bumpkins are indeed top targets, but Li or Zhang, if they die, so be it.

Nobility endures for five generations; only those who last five generations have roots to become a family of note.

The Li Family’s barely held on for a few generations and looks to be on the verge of collapse—hardly enough to set a trend.

As for the Zhang Family, they’re in decline too; we might as well help send them off.

With Sixth Uncle masking the Heavenly Fate, we simply need to act quickly and make a mess—let the Celestial Master Mansion tear itself apart."

"If Sixth Uncle took action himself, he’d have killed the girl long ago," someone said, glancing behind.

The Elder declared, "Sixth Uncle’s job is to keep watch; unless someone from the Upper Three Heavens shows up, he won’t intervene. Things are unstable and full of surprises right now; we have to be careful."

"Understood!" The Lin Clan disciples asked no further, spreading out to encircle Zhang Jingzhen.

Soil and rocks erupted among the forested slopes.

The dusky spirit light of the Breathing Soil Banner faded, and Lei Jun’s silhouette emerged amid it, watching the crowd with thoughtful eyes.